White House Unveils New National Space Policy

By Tariq Malik, Space.com Managing Editor |
June 28, 2010 06:27am ET

MORE

U.S. President Barack Obama speaking at NASA Kennedy Space Center.

Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

The White House
rolled out a sweeping national space policy for the United States on Monday,
one that aims to boost international cooperation and reiterates plans to send
Americans to visit an asteroid by 2025.

The 14-page space
policy reaches beyond President Barack Obama's plans for NASA ? which would
shift the goal of U.S.
human spaceflight from the moon to visiting asteroids and Mars, according
to a plan unveiled in February ? touching on future needs for Earth
observation, space debris and space security.

"We are
releasing a new national space policy, designed to strengthen America?s
leadership in space while fostering untold rewards here on Earth,"
President Obama said in a statement Monday. "For even as we continue
our relentless focus on the serious challenges we face at home and abroad, our
long-term success and leadership as a nation demands that we do not lose sight
of the promise of the future."

International
cooperation is key on all fronts included in the new space
policy, White House officials said.

"If there's one
really broad theme it is international cooperation, which is woven throughout
the new policy and it's our sort of foundational emphasis for achieving all of
our goals in space," said Barry Pavel, senior director for defense policy
and strategy for the National Security Council.

The to-do list

More robust
cooperation will be vital to develop more comprehensive systems to track global
climate change and space weather from orbit, as well as keep taps on the
growing risk of space debris collisions with satellites and other vehicles,
White House officials said.

The new national
space policy reiterates President Obama's proposed new direction for NASA,
which calls on the space agency to target missions beyond low-Earth orbit ?
such as to an asteroid ? by 2025 with the goal of sending astronauts to Mars in
the mid-2030s. [FAQ:
NASA's New Direction]

Obama proposed the
course change for NASA, which includes canceling the agency's Constellation
program building rockets and spaceships to return astronauts to the moon, in
February, then in April announced the goal of exploring asteroids by 2025.

The International
Space Station, which was slated to end its orbital life in 2015, has been
extended through 2020 under the new plan.

"NASA
has a key role in achieving the goals defined in the new policy," said
NASA chief Charles Bolden on Monday. "We are committed to working with
other agencies, industry, and international partners to achieve national goals
in exploration ? human and robotic ? and technology development that will
ensure a robust future for the U.S. and our friends around the world."

Under
NASA's new space plan, the agency will retire its space shuttle fleet by early
2011 and then rely on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from
the space station until U.S. commercial spacecraft are available.

Commercial
spaceflight push

Supporting
that nascent U.S. commercial
spaceflight industry is a vital part of the country's future in space,
President Obama said.

In
his statement, President Obama said "this policy is about the boundless
possibilities of the future. That is why we seek to spur a burgeoning
commercial space industry, to rapidly increase our capabilities in space while
bolstering America?s competitive edge in the global economy."

Despite
the new space policy's focus on international cooperation, it is still too
early to know if particular countries such as China will be able to participate
in current projects involving NASA, such as the International Space Station, or
on future U.S. space projects.

NASA
officials have dismissed recent reports from Russia suggesting that Russian
space officials invited China to join the International Space Station
project. The $100 billion space station has been under construction by 16
different partner countries since 1998 and is now nearly complete.

"I think it's a little bit premature to talk about China and the space
station. It's obviously a very complex issue," said Jim Kohlenberger,
chief of staff for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
"There're no imminent plans to include China at this point and obviously
we'd have to discuss it with our international partners.

Analysts of President
Obama's new space policy said it goes further toward international partnerships
than the previous policy laid down by former President George W. Bush.

While the Bush-era
policy took a unilateral approach to U.S. activities in space, the Obama
administration's policy would open up some areas ? such as new arms control
agreements and space security issues ? to international input.

"That?s
critically important," said Laura Grego, a senior scientist with the Union
of Concerned Scientists. "There is no way we can achieve lasting space
security independently. We are going to have to coordinate and cooperate with other
spacefaring nations. That?s the nature of space.

Tariq joined Purch's Space.com team in 2001 as a staff writer, and later editor, covering human spaceflight, exploration and space science. He became Space.com's Managing Editor in 2009. Before joining Space.com, Tariq was a staff reporter for The Los Angeles Times. He is also an Eagle Scout (yes, he has the Space Exploration merit badge) and went to Space Camp four times as a kid and a fifth time as an adult. He has journalism degrees from the University of Southern California and New York University. To see his latest project, you can follow Tariq on Google+, Twitter and on Facebook.